Zoom-Out Diagrams | Zoom-Out Library

Zoom-Out Diagrams are a simple, hand-drawn way to map what happens between something occurring in the world and what we do about it, and to show where in that chain we can zoom-out.

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An informal first run-through, recorded late on 25 September 2020 and trimmed for pace. Treat it as working notes rather than a finished model.

The concept: from event to outcome

The diagram reads left to right, like a circuit. Something happens, and a chain of steps follows, ending in outcomes in the world that feed back into the start.

Hand-drawn Zoom-Out Diagram: the full version on top, the shorthand version below, and an early Zoom-Out Canvas grid at the top right

The full version is on top, the shorthand below it, and an early idea for a “Zoom-Out Canvas” sits at the top right.

Element	What it shows
E (circle): Event	Something happens in the world.
Data (dotted line)	What the event gives out: light, sound and so on. This is raw data, not information, because information is data that has been structured and processed. The line is dotted because the data is always partial. Different people receive different data from the same event, depending on where they are, their line of sight, how clearly they can hear and so on.
P (lens): Perspective	Our perspective on the event, drawn as a lens like the lens of an eye. Underneath it sits B, our beliefs: the core beliefs about the world and other people that influence our perspective in any given moment.
I: Interpretation	Our perspective leads to an interpretation of the event.
Zigzag in a box: Meaning	From the interpretation we generate meaning. The box is a reminder of the “M” in meaning.
R (diamond): Reaction / Response	Our own internal response. It breaks down into emotion (a sigma-style E, “energy in motion”), thoughts (T) and physiology (Ph).
A (box with a tick): Actions	The action, or set of actions, that follows.
O: Outcomes	What ultimately happens in the world.
F: Feedback	Feedback from the world on the outcomes, flowing back into the whole system.

The key point is that meaning does not exist in the event itself. Out there in the objective world there are only events and data. We generate the meaning, based on our perspective and our interpretation.

Where the idea came from

Zoom-Out is about stepping back to see more. The diagrams are an attempt to make that visible, to show where in the flow from event to outcome a zoom-out can happen. A few things shaped how they look:

Visual thinking. I’ve always been a visual person and I love visualising things.
Feynman diagrams. Richard Feynman’s diagrams are a simple logical picture of how subatomic particles interact. Zoom-Out Diagrams borrow the spirit of that (a simple logical drawing of things interacting) rather than anything from the physics.
Electronic circuits. I was into electronics in my early teens, and the diagrams remind me of circuits: a flow in one direction and a feedback loop. Hence the idea of “a circuit of the mind”.
The ABC model from CBT. The A, B and C across the top of the sketch (activating event, beliefs, consequences) show how the two models line up. The Zoom-Out version is more broken down, which could be a strength or a weakness. A key difference is the feedback: it comes from the outcomes in the world and feeds back into the whole system, rather than only from our internal consequences back to our beliefs. As I understand it, CBT is less explicit about outcomes in the world.

It’s worth being clear about what this is. It’s an abstract, logical model of subjective experience. It isn’t trying to represent physical things in the world, only what logically happens in our minds.

What it’s for

Seeing that meaning is generated. We can add a whole heap of meaning to events that doesn’t need to be there, and some of it is dramatic. The diagram helps us strip that back, removing noise to get closer to the signal. Events are meaningless in and of themselves.
Finding the gap. Between the data and the meaning there is a gap, and that gap is where we can intervene, through mindfulness and other techniques. The aim is to change the default perspective and interrupt the flow of meaning before it is generated, so that we can change the perspective, the interpretation and the meaning.
Spotting what’s partial. The data is always partial, and our default perspective is always incomplete. Inside the perspective there are biases and heuristics at work, and the stories we tell ourselves generate the meaning.
Unpacking our reactions. Breaking R into emotion, thoughts and physiology makes a reaction easier to look at, one part at a time. The same breakdown can sit inside the other parts of the diagram.
Drawing it quickly. The shorthand version (E, d, P, I, a zigzag, R, A, O, F) is quick to sketch for a situation you’re working through, and the same elements can be laid out as a Zoom-Out Canvas (E, P, I across the top; R, A, O below). The layout is still a work in progress.
Linking perspective to outcomes. This echoes the zoom-in versus zoom-out comparison of outcomes in the Zoom-Out introductory workshop: change the perspective and you potentially change the outcomes.

As I say at the end of the video, this is a first draft, a first realisation of Zoom-Out Diagrams, and I think they’ve got potential.